No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet
AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway
Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
• Following back-to-back 22nd-place finishes at Michigan and Bristol, Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet team will travel to Hampton, Ga., to compete in Sunday’s AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS).
• Harvick will be available to members of the media at the No. 29 hauler in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) garage area at 2:55 p.m. on Friday.
• Closing in on the start of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Harvick has clinched at least a Wild Card spot with his three wins so far this year – and he can guarantee a top-10 berth with at least a finish of 40th, or 41st and at least one lap led, or 42nd and the most laps led in Sunday’s race at AMS.
• The No. 29 team will race chassis No. 353 from the Richard Childress Racing NSCS stable. The No. 29 team utilized this car to earn Harvick’s third win of the season in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May.
• In 20 starts at AMS, Harvick has accumulated one win, four top-five and six top-10 finishes. His average starting position at the track is 18.4 and his average finishing position is 20.5. Harvick has also led a total of 136 laps at AMS and completed 97.3 percent (6,275 of 6,448) of the laps run at the track since 2001.
• Last year Harvick finished ninth in the March race at AMS. He had a solid run going in the September event until the left-front tire blew out in the second half of the race, causing damage that ultimately forced the team to end the night in the garage with a 33rd-place finish.
• AMS is home to one of Harvick’s most memorable NSCS wins. In March 2001, making just his third series start, the rookie driver led 18 laps at AMS en route to scoring his first-ever Sprint Cup win by a margin of 0.006 seconds over Jeff Gordon.
• In addition to owning a NSCS win at AMS, Harvick has also visited Victory Lane at the 1.54-mile track in the Nationwide Series (September 2009) and the Camping World Truck Series (March 2010). He is currently the only driver to hold wins in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series at AMS.
• In addition to competing in Sunday’s NSCS race, Harvick will be at the wheel of the Kevin Harvick Inc. No. 33 Rheem Chevrolet in Nationwide Series competition on Saturday as well. Live race coverage will air on ESPN2 starting with the pre-race show at 7 p.m. ET. PRN affiliates and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
• For the online version of the Budweiser Racing media guide, please visit http://www.budracingmedia.com.
• Follow along each weekend with Harvick and the team on Twitter. Check out @KevinHarvick for behind-the-scenes information straight from the driver of the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet. Get live updates from the track each weekend from @Black29Car, the PR team for Harvick. Also, follow @RCRracing and @RCR29KHarvick for additional information about the Richard Childress Racing organization.
Kevin Harvick on racing at Atlanta:
Looking ahead to Atlanta Motor Speedway, how important is it for you to have a good run there, because there are so many mile-and-a-half tracks in the Chase? “You always want to run good, and any momentum is good momentum as long as it is headed in the right direction. Atlanta (Motor Speedway) in itself doesn’t do anything for us performance wise just because it is so slick and so worn out. It is kind of its own beast. Running good anywhere is a good thing, especially as we get closer to the Chase. I feel good about the things that we have got going on leading into Chicago. I do not know exactly how much of that will bleed over into the next few weeks, but I feel confident. It is definitely not going to be from a lack of effort from all the guys internally and the things that we have going on right now.”
What kind of track is Atlanta? “Atlanta is fast, very fast. You can race all over the race track, from the white line to the wall, and still be competitive. You have to have the complete package to contend for the win there and horsepower is always important. We had a strong run at Atlanta last fall so we really look forward to going back this year in the No. 29 Rheem Chevrolet.”
What do you like about racing at Atlanta? “I just like the fact that the car slides around a lot and you have to move around the race track and really search for somewhere to find more grip in order to make the car drive well, and you have to still be able to make fast lap times hunting for places to find grip.”
Take me through a lap around Atlanta. “It all depends on what lap you are on with the tires. The first lap is usually the perfect lap on the tires just because you have so much more grip than on the second, third, fourth and fifth laps, but Atlanta is just very fast and we seem to want to be right around the bottom. You use a lot of throttle, there’s a lot of corner speed and the car has to work good over the bumps.”